1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a moving picture processor and a moving picture processing method that generate metashots including temporal part(s) of moving pictures (hereinafter referred to as “shot(s)”), being moving pictures divided at a point of scene change (hereinafter referred to as “cut point”), at which the content of the image is changed over due to edition or break of shooting.
2) Description of the Related Art
As high-performance personal computers (PC) and hard disk recorders become widespread, a technique for digitalizing and storing images and moving pictures has been developed. This technique is realized in the form of hardware and software, and realized in hardware not only for business use but also for home use.
Specifically, for example, moving pictures are electromagnetically recorded in a hard disk (HDD) in the PC or the recorder. Therefore, there are benefits in that preferred programs can be reproduced with less waiting time, selective deletion of unwanted programs is easier, and the like, which the conventional video tapes do not have. By the improvement in convenience, the operation of video recording and the like can be easily performed.
On the other hand, there is a problem in that when a large amount of moving pictures is recorded, search of a preferred scene becomes difficult. However, such a problem can be handled by “skipping” of a program by using a fast-forwarding function, to reduce the search time.
However, since such “skipping” is performed by picking up display frames in a unit irrelevant to the structure of the program content, such as one frame in several seconds, a new problem occurs in that an intended scene may be passed over.
In order to solve such a problem, technical study and product development have been conducted, in which an image processing technique is used to segment a moving picture into temporal parts of the moving picture (hereinafter, “shots”) according to the points of scene change (hereinafter, “cut points”) at which the images in the moving picture are changed over, thereby enabling skipping unwanted shots.
As the temporal segmentation of the moving picture, some segments may be suitable according to the program content, for example, commercials and the main part of the program, and a topic change in a news program. However, only with such cut-detection technique described above, many unwanted segments may be generated even from the middle of commercials, main parts, or news topics.
Further, some of the generated shots are very short, such that the time length to be reproduced is only about several seconds. When the time length of one shot is extremely short, the effect of reducing the search time cannot be expected.
In order to solve such a problem, the present applicant has proposed a method for improving the visibility of a list display by omitting an icon display of similar shots (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H9-270006 and U.S. Patent Application #20020071649). Further, a method for structurizing the moving pictures in a unit closer to the original program content by grouping the repetitive units of the image is proposed. The grouping is referred to as “metashot” being a set of continuous shots.
According to the method described in the Patent Literature, in a program in which shots of a newscaster (anchorperson) are dispersed over the whole program, such as a news program, the whole program may be grouped as a metashot, thereby causing a problem in that the program cannot be divided into appropriate metashots.
Further, since the method for segmenting the program into appropriate metashots is different according to the type of the program, a technique in which the program can be segmented into appropriate metashots automatically, regardless of the type of program is desired.